A chance to meet the girls and their families

On my second last day in Cambodia, I jumped on the back of a moto and negotiated my way through the hot, busy streets of Phnom Penh. Weaving through corn vendors and Tuk Tuk’s, I eventually arrived at Cambodian Womens Crisis Center, where I met Raksmey Var, Projects and Partners Liaison Officer for Lotus Outreach, Mearedey Muong, Municipality Coordinator to CWCC and Mr. Sophal, GATE Phnom Penh Program Officer. We piled into a ute and headed out of the city. 10 km’s out, we were in the midst of rice paddies and wandering cows, heading towards the Pagoda in the Dang Kor district.

The children attending school in the pagoda craned their necks to see us through the classroom windows as we entered a spare classroom for a meeting with the Dang Kor volunteers. The volunteers were influential members of the Dang Kor society, including the town Chief, a principal and some teachers, who had visited the CWCC for training.

Nga is a sweet, shy 17-year-old Cambodian girl who grew up in a bamboo shack in a post-war resettlement slum. It's understandable that her mother would send her to Thailand for a good job selling cosmetics … but that promised job opportunity landed Nga in a busy brothel in Bangkok.

A teenager in a strange land with no family, no friends or resources, Nga made a remarkable bid for freedom at her first opportunity - when permitted to leave with a client she jumped off his moving motorbike into the river. The villagers fished her out, the police were contacted and the traffickers arrested. 

Nga spent 6 months with the re-integration team at the facility run by the Cambodian Women's Crisis Centre, where Lotus Outreach provides counsellors and vocational training for sexually abused girls. Though she is looked down upon in her community, Nga is fortunate to be free of HIV/AIDS and now works at a Thai market near her home.